Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

QP: Some new faces with the same repetitive lines

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Neither the prime minister nor his deputy was present today, but Pierre Poilievre was, as he so frequently is. He led off in French, and claimed that government spending caused inflation (false), and cited an RBC report saying that inflation and higher interest rates would cost families an additional $3000 next year, before he demanded that the government stop “raising taxes” (which they aren’t, but if they were, higher taxes actually fight inflation). Rachel Bendayan said that they know Canadian are facing higher expenses, which is why they are putting forward supports, that the Conservatives are opposing, such as rental supports and dental care. Poilievre switched to English to blame the federal government and the outgoing (formerly) NDP mayor of Vancouver for overdose deaths, violence and higher housing prices. He praised the election of a new mayor and demanded that the federal government “get the message.” Mark Holland said he appreciated the leader’s interest in the mayoralty campaign in Vancouver, but here in Ottawa, he was looking for support for their affordability measures. Poilievre insisted that the federal government was forcing British Columbia to “triple, triple, triple” their carbon price and demanded that they cancel the plan. Steven Guilbeault remarked that families in provinces under the federal price got their quarterly climate rebate payments on Friday. Poilievre then said the government was forcing “energy poverty” onto the Atlantic provinces, to which Guilbeault corrected him in that they are providing support for them to transition to cleaner and cheaper alternatives. Finally, Poilievre insisted that the government was just taking the carbon price revenue, and mocked the notion that it would “trickle down” back to people (false–the revenues don’t go to federal coffers and go to each province to recycle in the way they chose, including the federal climate rebates). Holland responded with some mockery about the Conservative belief in trickle-down economics, which doesn’t actually work.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he insisted that Chrystia Freeland announced a policy of “drill, baby, drill,” and that she drove the nail in the coffin of climate change. Jonathan Wilkinson noted that she did not contradict the government and that they would only move ahead on the right projects. Therrien insisted that the government was using the war in Ukraine to sell more oil, and Guilbeault reminded him that there is a rigorous environmental assessment process and that Canada is moving ahead on renewable energy, which is why Germany came to us for hydrogen.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and in French, he noted the Loblaws “price lock” on generic food products and demanded support for their Supply Day motion on making companies pay more. Rachel Bendayan recited that the government raised taxes on corporations. Alistair MacGregor took over in English, with the took credit for the Loblaws move, to which Terry Beech called for support for their affordability measures.

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Roundup: The problem with giving everyone a title

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There has been a lot of talk over the past few days about the choices that Pierre Poilievre made with announcing a shadow Cabinet as large as he did, and lo, the CBC had even more commentary over the weekend about it. Suffice to say, I’m not sure I really buy the take of “it gives everyone something to do.” Why? For starters, the whole point of a shadow Cabinet, particularly as it is practiced in the UK, is to have people who are ready to go into ministries if there is a change of government, and these are people who know their files, and can slot into the positions easily and quickly. That doesn’t really happen in Canada because our Cabinets have a lot of other considerations in play, such as regional composition, and balance with gender and other diversity, but region is the big one, and therefore, we can’t really have people ready to go into ministries because we don’t know how the regional dynamics will play at a time when they form government. (This is one reason why I’m not keen on calling critics “shadow ministers,” because they don’t have the same function). If you give everyone jobs that are not related to how Cabinet is composed, you’re not really living up to the purpose, particularly if you’re assigning made-up portfolios to certain MPs to exercise their hobby-horses as a reward for loyalty, even though as a reward goes, it’s not much because there is no added pay that goes with it.

My other problem, however, is that MPs already have a lot of work that they’re already not really doing, and many of them have offloaded those responsibilities on to independent Officers of Parliament, and that’s a problem. Committee work is supposed to take up the bulk of an MP’s time, but if they’re playing “shadow minister” for their hobby horses, they’re spending less time doing the work in committee or elsewhere that they’re supposed to be doing. There is also participation-trophy syndrome at play, where (almost) everyone gets a title (but not pay), even though we should remember that backbenchers are supposed to play important accountability roles in our parliamentary system. If we’re training the caucus to all expect titles and roles and not that they have jobs to do as backbenchers, we’re really weakening the ability of our parliament to do its job, and that is worrying. Not that the current crop of MPs in the Commons seems to care much about Parliament and its ability to function correctly, and this goes for all parties (and it’s really not helped when the prime minister has been a constitutional vandal when it comes to the Senate and the role it plays). This is a problem, and we should be talking about it, rather than patting Poilievre on the back for such a “strategic” move.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 235:

Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk say that their mayor’s office was hit by a rocket, which the Ukrainian military has not claimed responsibility for, while Russian rockets struck the town across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Over the weekend, a missile strike seriously damaged an energy facility near Kyiv,

https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1581636027487178754

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Roundup: The first witnesses at the inquiry

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The first day of witness testimony took place at the Emergencies Act Public Inquiry, hearing from citizen representatives about what they went through during the illegal occupation, as well as two of the city councillors whose wards were most affected, and representatives from affected BIAs. There was a common theme in there—people feeling afraid and terrorized by the collection of far-right extremists, grifters, conspiracy theories and grievance tourists who made up the occupation; and more to the point, they felt abandoned by the Ottawa City Police, who were the police of jurisdiction.

Which brings me to my other point—that the NDP, and MP Matthew Green in particular, are trying to return to this bullshit narrative that the federal government “abandoned” the city and didn’t show leadership during the occupation, which is completely false. There was no jurisdiction that they could exert—the Ottawa police, as established, were the police of jurisdiction, and there is no mechanism by which the federal government can bigfoot them or assert jurisdiction. Even the Emergencies Act allowed for the RCMP to be deployed under the command of the Ottawa police, with expedited swearing-in that enabled them to do their jobs. There is nothing that the federal government could have done to “show leadership” up until they invoked the Act. I know the NDP like to pretend that there’s a Green Lantern ring somewhere, and that all it takes is “political will” to do something, but there is no “political will” section of the Constitution. Real life doesn’t work like that, and the NDP need to grow up and start criticising the government for things that are actually their fault, not the things that aren’t, because it weakens their credibility when it comes to the real problems.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 233:

Ukrainian forces continue to press their advantage in the Kharkiv region, as the Russians say they will have completed their mobilisation within two weeks. The first 200 Ukrainians have completed their training in the UK with British and Canadian trainers, which includes offensive tactics, not just defensive ones. Here is a look at the city of Lyman, and how much it suffered under four months of Russian occupation.

https://twitter.com/dim0kq/status/1580827171903635456

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Roundup: The fiscal stance is tight

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The Parliamentary Budget Officer was doing his actual job of providing alternative fiscal forecasts for Parliamentarians, and his projection of the economic situation is that growth will slow over the second half of this year, which isn’t a bad thing because it will help to tackle inflation, particularly as the Bank of Canada continues to raise rates. The deficit continues to shrink, as does the federal debt-to-GDP ratio, which shows our fiscal stance is not too loose.

Here’s economist Kevin Milligan putting things into more context, but the bottom line is that the Conservatives’ assertion that government spending is fuelling inflation is not true, and they need to come up with some more credible talking points. (Yeah, yeah, good luck with that one, I know).

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1580598737906597894

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1580602979140632576

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1580605473476476929

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 232:

It was another day of Russian strikes against civilian targets, including by Iranian-built kamikaze drones, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to request more air defence systems to protect the country. Ukrainian forces boasted that they took down four Russian helicopters in the space of eighteen minutes.

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Roundup: Freeland’s non-contradictory position on energy

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On Tuesday, Chrystia Freeland gave a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC, and she outlined some fairly ambitious economic policy that involves a retrenching of keeping our supply chains within fellow democracies, because relying on regimes like Russia and China can prove costly in the end—particularly if you look at what’s happening in Europe with their energy crisis. It also means accelerating the green energy transition, which is also happening at a faster pace. But what got a bunch of people in Canada curious was Freeland talking about fast-tracking energy and mining projects to help Europe with that transition. But there is nuance there, however.

The CBC in particular got excited because they claimed to see some kind of contradiction with what Freeland was saying with the fact that the government won’t do anything to fast-track LNG projects, and that we somehow sent German Chancellor Olaf Scholz packing when he came looking for LNG. Erm, except he didn’t, because he knows as well as anyone that we don’t have the infrastructure for LNG, and so he came looking for hydrogen, which he got. But the CBC’s Vassy Kapelos did an interview with Scholz, where she spent half of it badgering and hectoring him about LNG until he said that he would like Canadian LNG if we had it, and they kept bringing that clip up in isolation. But again, Scholz knows we don’t, that it would take too long to build, and frankly that the market case isn’t there. As I wrote in this column, the timelines for these projects don’t make sense, and frankly, the LNG projects that have been on the drawing table for decades never took off because they couldn’t get commitments from buyers for the project. And while Kapelos was hectoring and badgering natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson yesterday about LNG, and insisting that the Americans can get theirs to export and why not us, the difference is that they have been converting LNG import terminals for export, which we can’t do. We have one import terminal in New Brunswick, and it would take two years to retrofit, assuming they could get a steady supply of gas, which they don’t have without importing. That’s why it’s an import terminal. But apparently there are no producers at Power & Politics who can pick up the phone and call a gods damned energy economist who can explain these things before they talk to the minister and not waste everyone’s time.

So no, Freeland didn’t contradict anyone. They are putting a focus on mining critical minerals in Canada—Trudeau made such an announcement earlier in the week. They are focusing on hydrogen, some of which may come from natural gas, which again, is not LNG, but is an energy project. “Energy project” is not simply code for LNG, guys. It’s only slightly alarming that the gods damned public broadcaster can’t be bothered to do their homework to put things in context before they start hyperventilating, but this is apparently the era we’re living in.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 231:

Ukrainian forces say that they have recaptured five settlements in the southern Kherson region, while the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has lost external power for the second time in five days, which puts stress on the cooling systems.

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Roundup: Smith disqualifies herself on day one

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Her first day on the job, and Danielle Smith is already proving to be unsuited for public office. Shortly after being sworn-in as premier by the Lieutenant Governor, Smith held a press conference where she said that she wants to protect the unvaccinated, because they are the “most discriminated-against” group in her lifetime.

*deep breath, clenches fists*

No. Not even close. And let me tell you, it was a choice to say that on Coming Out Day. They are not discriminated against. There is no “segregation.” The unvaccinated are people who get to live with the consequences of making a selfish choice based on a bunch of junk “science” and conspiracy theories that they’ve consumed, and their reckless disregard for the vulnerable and immune-compromised. Those consequences? Not eating in restaurants or not getting to travel. A few lost their jobs because of the choice they made. Contrast this to actual discrimination that people suffer because of race, gender, sexuality, or disability. Consequences that include employment, housing, hate crimes, and even mass slaughter, and yes, this has all happened in Smith’s lifetime. This is her answering the grievances of the privileged, the entitled, and the selfish, and not having actually suffered discrimination, she lacks the basic self-awareness to know the difference between the two. This should be disqualifying.

Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, Scott Moe unveiled his “white paper” on pushing back against so-called federal encroachment on the province, and well, I’ve read far more vigorous undergraduate papers in my day. The premise of said paper is that all environmental rules and regulations are just a ruse for keeping the province down, and controlling them, which is risible on its face. And the notion that Saskatchewan should somehow be a “nation within a nation” belies the fact that they don’t have a distinct language, culture, legal tradition, or pre-Confederation history. Calling hoodies “bunny hugs” is not a distinct culture. Resource extraction without concern for environmental consequences is not a distinct culture. Moe is doing some bad Jason Kenney cosplay, and it’s just pathetic.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1579905716747661312

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1579907251221172224

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1579907677316345856

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 230:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with G7 leaders and asked for more air defences (to fend off future missile attacks like they faced this week), a price cap on oil and gas exports from Russia to cut off their funding, and an international mission at the Ukraine-Belarus border, presumably to keep any Belarussian forces out of the country. Some German air defence systems did arrive in the country yesterday, so they are starting to arrive as this ask is being made. Meanwhile, bodies are being exhumed from the mass graves outside of the city of Lyman, which was liberated from Russian occupation.

https://twitter.com/OlenaHalushka/status/1579849665226629121

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Roundup: Backing away from the crazy now that the leadership is secured

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Now that she has won the UCP leadership and is about to be sworn-in as premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith is suddenly backing down from some of the things she’s been saying about her “Sovereignty Act,” and is telling media outlets that she’ll respect the rule of law when courts inevitably rule against it because it’s going to be blatantly unconstitutional. Which isn’t what was promised, and the whole point of the Act, based on the brain trust that invented the idea, was to force a constitutional crisis by disobeying the Supreme Court. Now Smith is saying otherwise, which is starting to look mighty cynical—that she sold her base on a false promise in order to get them to buy memberships and vote for her, and now she’s going to tone it down. It’s just so cynical and crass that you have to wonder what she won’t say or do in order to get her way now that she’ll have access to real levers of power.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 229:

The weekend began with an explosion on the bridge between Crimea and Russia, attributed to Ukraine, and on the day after Putin’s birthday, given how much of a vanity project this bridge was for Putin. By Monday morning, Russians shelled the city centres in Kyiv and nine other cities in Ukraine, all targeting civilian infrastructure, calling it retaliation for the Crimean bridge explosion, and trying to call it terrorism (while attacking civilian centres, which is actual terrorism). One of the cities hit was Zaporizhzhia, where apartment buildings were struck. As well, here are stories of survivors of Russians in liberated villages in the Kherson region, and a look at the looting Russians have undertaken of places like museums in captured regions.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1579530489802944512

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Roundup: New sanctions on Iran, new enforcement resources

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Mid-afternoon, on the Friday before a long weekend, the prime minister and deputy prime minister hastily called a press conference and announced new sanctions against the Iranian regime—the top 50 percent of the IRGC will be permanently barred from Canada under powers in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which have thus-far only been applied to genocidaires from Bosnia and Rwanda. As well, more sanctions to other individuals have been announced, but even more importantly was the announcement of $76 million to establish a new sanctions bureau at Global Affairs so that we have the capacity to actually monitor and enforce these sanctions we’ve been applying.

Is this a declaration that the IRGC is a terrorist entity? No, because it would still be impossible to monitor and enforce, and would capture too many low-level conscripts. Will the Conservatives continue to yell and moan about it? Of course they will. There is some commentary that if applied properly, these measures could be more effective than listing them under the Criminal Code, but again, this depends on it being properly applied, and it will take time to build the capacity in the aforementioned sanctions bureau. It also bears noting that this all seems last-minute, reactive, and like this government doesn’t know how to get ahead of issues, so even if they do the right thing, it comes off as being pushed or shamed into it, which doesn’t help the narrative that this government is getting tired.

Danielle Smith

In the wake of her leadership victory, Alberta’s incoming premier Danielle Smith has agreed to run in a by-election for a seat of her own, and one of her MLAs is resigning to accommodate her (and had not planned to run again in the next election), and for Smith, it’s a mostly rural seat, because that’s her base. There is also a vacant seat in Calgary, but Smith would have a harder time there, and also plans not to hold that by-election in advance of next spring’s general election, which is indefensible under political norms. But hey, she’s willing to pretend the whole constitution is free to be ignored, so why should political norms matter? Yeah, this is a problem.

Meanwhile, here’s Jason Markusoff’s lengthy profile of Smith and her reinvention. Ken Boessenkool considers Smith to be a kamikaze mission into modern conservatism itself (and yet it’s almost like the bastardised way in which we now run leadership contests basically makes this an inevitability). Colby Cosh tries to put some context into Smith’s comeback and her outlasting all of her political rivals. Andrew Coyne sees storm clouds on the horizon with both François Legault and Danielle Smith looking to be constitutional vandals. My weekend column previews some of the absolute constitutional chaos, right up to the suspension of the rule of law, if Danielle Smith tries to get her own way.

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/1578497923016699904

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 226:

There have been explosions in the Kharkiv region, as Russia concentrates attacks on the city while they are being driven back elsewhere in the country. More mass graves have been found in the Kharkiv region, on top of those already found at Izium and in Lyman.

https://twitter.com/TetySt/status/1578462615994368000

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Roundup: Tagging the misogynists to own the Libs

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News broke yesterday morning from Global that videos on Pierre Poilievre’s YouTube channel contained hidden tags including #mgtow (Men Going Their Own Way), which is considered so misogynistic that even Reddit has banned it. This anti-feminist movement includes incels who have perpetrated mass murder in this country. But it’s not like Poilievre hasn’t been playing footsies with other extremist elements in this country, right? Right?

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1578020907876249600

In the wake of the revelation, Poilievre was forced to address it in Question Period, where he denounced the “organisation,” which isn’t an organisation, and said that he denounces misogyny, and then began engaging in whataboutism and trying to attack the prime minister instead. There was no actual apology, and his insistence that because he ensured that the tags were removed and he denounced misogyny, that’s enough. His caucus was telling media on their way out of the West Block that Poilievre “took responsibility” and that was more than Trudeau ever did, which is wrong on both counts. There was no responsibility taken—mere hours later, Poilievre’s office said they weren’t going to investigate and basically shrugged about who could have possibly done this (the answer is starting to look pretty obvious), and he has done zero work of trying to remedy his tendency of flirting with these extremist elements, whereas Trudeau has put in the work when it comes to combatting racism.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 225:

Russian forces shelled an apartment block in Zaporizhzhia, in spite of the fact that they “annexed” the territory, while the Ukrainian counter-offensive continues. Sweden, meanwhile, has found evidence of detonations along the Nordstream pipelines, pointing to Russian sabotage.

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QP: Trudeau attacks Poilievre’s incel connection

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The prime minister was present on a Thursday, which is rare, but I’ll take what I can get. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and worried about families who can’t afford Thanksgiving dinner this year, blaming carbon prices even though that’s not the driver of food price inflation. Justin Trudeau responded that they knew Canadians were struggling with the global inflation crisis, which is why the proposed measures like the GST rebate, and demanded support for rental supports and dental care for kids. They went another round of the same in English, and Poilievre listed increasing food prices, and insisted this was about the carbon price, and Trudeau tried to shame him about not supporting “kids’ smiles” before he launched into an attack on the news report that Poilievre had been tagging his YouTube videos to appeal to incels. Poilievre stated that he “condemns this organisation” (they’re not an organisation) and insisted that he condemns all misogyny and hit back about Jody Wilson-Raybould and Blackface, because of course he did. Trudeau pressed on about Poilievre appealing to incels, to which Poilievre again insisted that he corrected the problem and repeated the accusations about the prime minister. Trudeau noted that a lot of admiration was given for Poilievre’s videos during the leadership campaign, and he once again pushed on Poilievre playing too closely to extremists.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he demanded to know the prime minister’s intentions at Roxham Road, accusing him of increasing migrants in Quebec against their consent and of endangering French. Trudeau picked up a script to deliver some talking points about working with the French government around immigration and the protection of French. Blanchet denounced the policies that favour cheap labour (erm, you know the reliance of your province on temporary foreign workers), and demanded the unredacted contracts for Roxham Road facilities. Trudeau, extemporaneously, reminded him that Quebec already has all of the immigration powers they need and can increase francophone immigration if they want to.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he listed grocery oligopoly CEO salaries before demanding the government stop the “greed-flation” of grocery chains. Trudeau listed the actions they have taken to help low-income people, and stated that they are strengthening the Competition Act. Peter Julian took over in English to repeat the question, and Trudeau repeated his same points.

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